


This Is The Day

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Has Doubts, Gen, Introspection, Introspective Castiel, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Castiel knows what choices he must make. But that doesn’t make it any easier.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 421. Originally posted to Livejournal in 2009.

Castiel leaned against the railing and waited. He was always waiting. For revelation, for orders, for someone else to tell him what to do. How he craved the certainty of the past. Then he knew that his Father’s word was Good and that by obeying he was ensuring the Apocalypse never came to bear. Then he knew that Angels were Good, Demons were Bad and Humans were children who could not be trusted to make their own decisions.

And then came Anna. And Uriel. And Dean. Bringing with them doubt in the Truth of his orders that snaked through his body like Sam’s poisoned blood. Distorting. Corrupting. Speaking to him in a tongue that he should not be able to understand. That he should not _want_ to understand.

And with each flicker of doubt the voice grew louder. And always it was Dean’s voice; picking at his orders, questioning, pushing at him, showing him no respect. Making Castiel respect him all the more, even if he could not, did not, know how to make that clear to Dean without muddying their already difficult relationship. He did not know exactly when it had happened, but Dean’s trust had become something that he cherished, just as he had the praise from his superiors. It was dangerous to think like this, he knew, but then just thinking had become dangerous.

The wind was cold against his back, his vessel’s arms covering in goosebumps, but Castiel did not move. He only stared down into the water, listening bleakly to the horns of the ships nearby, the call of the birds in the distance, the low thrum of civilisation reminding him how distant he was from everything.

How had it come to this? That he would willingly trust a human’s Judgement over his Brethren? That Dean Winchester’s survival meant more to him than his Sisters? No matter what else may happen he would always bear the responsibility for Anna’s destruction. She had tried to make him see that he must make choices for himself, little suspecting that they would lead her to her own death. She’d told him that such choices would be difficult, would tear him apart. He hadn’t believed her. Until he did.

He did not try to sugar-coat his choice by noting that it was the only option left open to him (though it was). He did not try to deny the hurt he felt in the core of his Grace that he had picked a human’s soul over hers. His Converted Brethren would have killed him too if he had not let Sam out of his confinement, if he had not lead Anna so neatly into his trap. And then where would Dean be?

Where would the world be?

But maybe that was all arrogance and he was no better than his Fallen Brother’s and Sisters. No better than the Morning Star. He was just a lowly angel in the lowliest of the garrisons. A foot soldier to do the bidding of whoever asked. Why should his choices have any effect upon the fate of the world?

He growled low in his throat, barely aware that he was making a noise. He gripped the railing tighter, wanting to _feel_ something, even if it was the transitory sensation that Jimmy’s body passed on to him through nerve endings that otherwise he barely acknowledged.

He so wanted to be able to slide into revelation, to have known for sure that God’s Will was being done on Earth as it was in Heaven. But now he did not trust the words that danced across his borrowed flesh. They were like the sibilant calls of the Serpent. They felt so good against his skin and he hated himself for the way the pleasure spiked through him at each new call, even as he swallowed his disgust at the lies he was weaving to protect himself. He could not understand how humans deceived themselves and others so neatly or how they managed to remember all their lies; how they lived them for decades if not longer, and how so many were never caught out. How did they love and talk and eat and work and play and spin webs of lies and half-truths and not go mad from it all? When did Truth become the last option instead of the first? Had his Father failed His children?

And when did protecting the Winchesters become his primary mission? His choice?

If only he knew for certain that Sam could be saved. But certainty was a luxury none of God’s creatures could ever be in possession of; he realised that now. He hoped though, hoped so hard that Dean would be able to get through to Sam. But the pitting of brother against brother was as old as Time, and never ended well.

Castiel turned around slowly as he became aware of eyes watching him, always watching. He was a soldier and a strategist. He knew how to plan. And if he needed to follow his own course rather than another’s, then so be it. He would die knowing that he had done his best. Surely that was all his Father could ask of him, if He ever asked anything.

“It is time,” Zachariah said, stepping out of the shadows. “I trust you are ready, Brother?”

Castiel inclined his head. “I follow where you lead.”

His expression was completely blank, his Grace as cold as ice. Zachariah regarded him critically and then grinned, his eyes lighting up. How Castiel hated the smug vessel his superior had taken for his own.

“Indeed you do.”

Zachariah disappeared in a flutter of wings. Castiel shot a quick prayer of forgiveness Heavenwards, blanching slightly because he couldn’t let his words carry fully to where they may be heard by friend or foe, and then did the same.

He would make things right. Even if he had to destroy Heaven in order to save it.

Even if he had to destroy himself.


End file.
